Charles I of England

Charles I of England (19 November 1600-30 January 1649) was the King of England from 27 March 1625 to 30 January 1649, succeeding James I of England and preceding Charles II of England. Charles believed in his divine right to rule and quarreled with Parliament over his absolute power, and his marriage to the Catholic Henrietta Maria of France made him even more unpopular. In the English Civil Wars, Charles' royalist forces were repeatedly defeated by the Parliamentarians of Oliver Cromwell, and he was executed by beheading in 1649.

Biography
Charles was born on 19 November 1600, the first child of King James VI of Scotland and Anne of Denmark, and he belonged to the House of Stuart. Charles moved to England in 1603 when his father became the new king, and the death of his brother Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales led to Charles becoming the new heir apparent of his father. In 1623, he was a potential suitor to Maria Anna of Spain, but his father decided to instead increase relations with the Kingdom of France by marrying him to Henrietta Maria of France, daughter of the late Henry IV of France. In 1625, Charles inherited the throne from his father and continued his belief in "divine right", the God-given right of absolute monarchy to all Christian rulers. Charles levied taxes without the consent of Parliament, and he governed according to his own conscience. As a result, the First English Civil War broke out in 1642, where he fought the Parliamentarians of both England and Scotland and was soundly defeated. His captors asked him to establish a constitutional monarchy, but he refused and escaped captivity. He rallied another royalist army in the Second English Civil War, allying with the Scots against Oliver Cromwell's New Model Army. In January 1649, defeated again, Charles was sentenced to death for high treason and publicly beheaded in Whitehall, London for his crimes.